Oof, I haven't played this in years, but I keep meaning to get back to it. A bunch of people I know ONLY play LoL so I keep meaning to pick it back up but probably so much has changed it'll take me months to get a feel for it again. I suppose this is as good a time as any to dip my toe in.

I'd join, but my kid uses my account when he wants to use other champs. He's 6, so I'm keeping him far away from any sort of LoL community (even ours).

He's got a level 15 account right now. I just started playing blind picks on it and.. holy shit, the community may have actually gotten worse since I've played last. It's amazing. Why on earth would someone flame people for not knowing how to rotate properly or for dumb plays on in a blind pick on with non level 30 accounts? It's hard being zen when you're in the middle of a bunch of frothy retards that are getting bent out of shape because you flubbed your ult.

Yes, the community seems to have gotten a lot touchier. It's still not quite Heroes of Newerth level of shitgoblins but damn it's close. I've basically taken to the "play like a bitch" methodology and rather than responding with my usual profanity, I just fucking mute the shitstains at the first sign of negativity.

I do wish there was some kind of "here's what's changed in the last X years" note, though. I have no clue what I'm doing. There's bugs in the river and when you kill them they turn in to wards or something? And instead of Baron Nashor there's this weird purple golem dude? And there's pages of new heroes and items to get the hang of... The official website is an unnavigable mess, too. Ugh.

edit: also, what did they do with trinkets and wards? Unless I'm missing something, there are only two now or something?

Everybody can get free wards (there's even the #4 slot exclusively for them) and they upgrade them to different types at level 9 for free. There's also a limit on how many "stealth" wards you can place out - I'm actually not entirely sure of all the warding options. There are still pink wards but I think they have a shorter duration.

But let's face it, if you're in Bronze 5, chances are you may be the most conscientious warder on your team even if you only ever place 1 ward.

Trinket wards are free. Sight wards are limited to sightstone and you can only have 3 down at a time. Pink wards are limited to 2 per player, last forever, are visible, and you can only have one placed at a time.

After going 18/1/x, 10/0/1, and something else ridiculous it jumped me into hell. Those first 3 games it looked like most everyone was a complete noob. Most had trouble even moving, buying items, etc. It felt bad killing them. However, they were all very nice and everyone was helpful to each other. No ragers, no afks, no ragequits.

So, after that it puts me into the "here be smurfs" or "people playing out their temp bans" queue. Nothing but ragers, racists and otherwise intolerable shits. And I'm getting absolutely fucking crushed. There needs to be a happy medium here. It can't be carry or stomped. I'm sure there's a group of people with a decent knowledge of the game but just stink at it and aren't complete raging assholes... wow, I just typed that. Even though I'm losing, I wouldn't be having such a bad time if the people were less vile. As it is now, I seem to just be queuing to see what variety of asshole I'll get this time.

I've found games like that too. One game as Talon mid against a Lux and I just so utterly raped her it wasn't even funny. I was sitting there with 6 kills and 0 deaths in the mid-game phase such that when I'm come to a team fight, dive in and melt two champs on the other team and survive. And you know, you get that feeling like "I finally know what I'm doing!" Win the game after less than 20 minutes.

Then the next game, played Talon, got a matchup against Lux and just got slaughtered. Like level 3 I die from cocky dives. And it's just like "Am I playing a different fucking game here?" Same thing happened with Blitzcrank yesterday. Lunchtime game, 20 assists, we win handily. Night time game, 9 assists and a shitton of deaths and we lose.

The trick to these game is to never take it seriously. And only play feast or famine champs when you get good. If you get penta kills one game than go 0/10 the next game your probably playing a champ with a higher skill curve than you need. A lot of players stay bad at the game because they play champs like rengar and polish their pub stomping skills and learn very little mechanics because their only successful against people a lot worse than them. Their also the type that are basically worth less than an afk when behind.

I tend to find that most Bronze players have no fucking clue how to play from behind or even what the point of the game is. And I don't even mean the obvious morons, face smashers and gloryhounds, I mean even some of the decent mechanical players don't have even a hint of the concept of objectives or warding. The more I learn, the more I see how bad I was as a player years ago, and how much better I've gotten since I started watching pro streams. Not great, maybe not even good, but shit I'm so much better than I was.

We should create a club though, because you can create an up to 5-character tag that appears after your name in-game. I assume we can come up with something excellent for that. Or just, you know, [f13]

We should create a club though, because you can create an up to 5-character tag that appears after your name in-game. I assume we can come up with something excellent for that. Or just, you know, [f13]

I tend to find that most Bronze players have no fucking clue how to play from behind or even what the point of the game is. And I don't even mean the obvious morons, face smashers and gloryhounds, I mean even some of the decent mechanical players don't have even a hint of the concept of objectives or warding. The more I learn, the more I see how bad I was as a player years ago, and how much better I've gotten since I started watching pro streams. Not great, maybe not even good, but shit I'm so much better than I was.

Are you out of Bronze IV or V yet? Because at that range, all everyone does is fight. It doesn't matter if there's something more important to do, people be facetanking and diving every chance they get. You really don't get people actually trying to win until you inch toward silver.

My son's account isn't 30, so no ranked. Not playing my ancient account because I don't have a character created in the last 2-3 years. I've completely switched to just playing ARAMs and mode of the week. Way, way less BM. It's not gone, as I had someone rage against me for an entire game because I was playing Teemo, but it's a lot less toxic. Plus, all my son buys are ranged characters and hyper carries, so I get decent randoms.

I tend to find that most Bronze players have no fucking clue how to play from behind or even what the point of the game is. And I don't even mean the obvious morons, face smashers and gloryhounds, I mean even some of the decent mechanical players don't have even a hint of the concept of objectives or warding. The more I learn, the more I see how bad I was as a player years ago, and how much better I've gotten since I started watching pro streams. Not great, maybe not even good, but shit I'm so much better than I was.

Some of that has to be a result of the surrender function? I never played many LoL games against people, but holy shit I remember alot of games where my teammates only played for real until minute 12 or 15, and if we weren't well ahead or relatively even, would just assume we'd surrender at 20 and cruised out until the vote passed.

Not trying to restart the surrender/no surrender war. I'm just saying a natural result of a surrender option is more players tend to all in early and be fine with surrendering at 20 rather than pushing for a late game.

On the other hand, Dota has had issues with games going longer and longer. Come back mechanic (gold gained on kills dependent on how farmed the enemy is) mean that a defending team can actually get right back in a game if the defenders wipe the attackers.... which lead to lots of slow playing out the remainder of a game so as to not throw. You are literally talking about 6-10k gold swings where a 15-20k gold lead used to be considered insurmontable. It also lead to lots and lots of 60+ minute games.

Before the mechanic was nerfed a couple times, even pro games were going really REALLY slow.

I've made it to Bronze 4 - WEEEE!!!!! My first two games in 4 were good, then the last two were full of complete fucking mongoloids, including an Azir support (THE FUCK?) who claimed to be having lag but continually walked out from the safety of turrets into matchups he had no hope of winning or affecting. And then the Graves on the other team that was shredding my Lucian (because I had no support/feeding support) said that I should be reported for being Lucian and black and not in jail.

Some of that has to be a result of the surrender function? I never played many LoL games against people, but holy shit I remember alot of games where my teammates only played for real until minute 12 or 15, and if we weren't well ahead or relatively even, would just assume we'd surrender at 20 and cruised out until the vote passed.

Not trying to restart the surrender/no surrender war. I'm just saying a natural result of a surrender option is more players tend to all in early and be fine with surrendering at 20 rather than pushing for a late game.

On the other hand, Dota has had issues with games going longer and longer. Come back mechanic (gold gained on kills dependent on how farmed the enemy is) mean that a defending team can actually get right back in a game if the defenders wipe the attackers.... which lead to lots of slow playing out the remainder of a game so as to not throw. You are literally talking about 6-10k gold swings where a 15-20k gold lead used to be considered insurmontable. It also lead to lots and lots of 60+ minute games.

Before the mechanic was nerfed a couple times, even pro games were going really REALLY slow.

Eh, it's not really due to the surrender mechanic. The mindset of the people in Haem's ranking is that the game is a giant brawl and you should fight ALL THE FUCKING TIME. It's also because since Bronze V is the lowest, you get some really weird skill discrepancies. You'll get people with absolutely no idea how to play and combined with people that are in the ELO for other reasons, makes for some pretty slaughter heavy matchups.

The surrender mechanic comes more into play in medium to high ELOs where people see the snowball better and just want to get on to their next game. LoL's game mechanics also don't work very well to counter a snowballing team, however at most ELOs a throw is just right around the corner. If people just play it out, the lack of communication can always lead to a giant mistake that combined with late game death timers can lead to the improbable.

People playing LoL do not want DOTA2 length games. The metas that allowed for really long games were some of the most unpopular in the game's history.

I've made it to Bronze 4 - WEEEE!!!!! My first two games in 4 were good, then the last two were full of complete fucking mongoloids, including an Azir support (THE FUCK?) who claimed to be having lag but continually walked out from the safety of turrets into matchups he had no hope of winning or affecting. And then the Graves on the other team that was shredding my Lucian (because I had no support/feeding support) said that I should be reported for being Lucian and black and not in jail.

I just... I don't even...

Bot lane is fucking hell. You're either a god or a goat. Sadly, I'm usually the only person willing to play either ADC or support (because no fucking way am I jungling).

I'd actually prefer to jungle these days as I'm getting really good with Trundle. But almost every time I pick it, the matchmaker shunts me to my 2nd choice. Not that I'm complaining because I still prefer it to the old He who screams first tries to get his choice of champ/lane even if he's last pick."

I still have issues with having to juggle last hitting while facing off and trading blows with the other side. Jungle appeals great to me, or support. I just wish I could choose Jungle-only in the matchmaker. I don't mind having to wait a little longer if it means being able to play what I want, but I understand the necessity of at least getting matches going for the greater good. I just wish the match maker was smart enough to see that I picked Support as my 2nd role for the last five games; would it kill them to give me my primary Jungle every now and then?

"Those lights, combined with the polygamous Nazi mushrooms, will mess you up."

"Tuning me out doesn't magically change the design or implementation of said design. Though, that'd be neat if it did." -schild

I think they should just take "Fill" off the matchmaker, since it might as well be labeled "You know you really want to play support. Because you're going to be playing support if you click this. Why don't you just click support?" with an arrow pointing upwards to support.

* True story - I picked Fill one time and got put in jungle. I LOL'ed.

The thing that really kills me is the lack of perspective. I don't mind support, so if I just want to get a game in w/o waiting I'll click "fill". But I find the least pleasant games are those, because people LOVE to flame their supports, even if they are also actively terrible. I'm like, this match wouldn't have happened if people weren't willing to fill and take support, so maybe don't be a mongoloid. Then again it's LoL.

Jungle and support get the most flaming. Jungle is a lot worse as you get it from every single lane. In support it's usually just the primadona ADC because you're holding them back or jungler because you botched their gank. And your score/items always suck because you're support and nobody fucking else will ward (or even pay attention to your wards).

If you want to play Jungle, don't pick support as your second. From what I've heard, if you pick support second with anything, you'll likely get support.

Warding sticks in my craw SO BAD. It's often that I'm the only one warding regardless of what role I play. It's even more infuriating when the goddamn support won't even ward when I'm ADC. It's not like the game GIVES YOU FUCKING WARDS FOR FREE OR ANYTHING.

The thing that really kills me is the lack of perspective. I don't mind support, so if I just want to get a game in w/o waiting I'll click "fill". But I find the least pleasant games are those, because people LOVE to flame their supports, even if they are also actively terrible. I'm like, this match wouldn't have happened if people weren't willing to fill and take support, so maybe don't be a mongoloid. Then again it's LoL.

I'm still trying to claw my way back out of Bronze V. Every time I get out, I go on these streaks of 5-6 games where the matchmaker puts me on teams that could not be full of more mentally handicapped weasel rapists if you literally went back in time and fed all of them lead paint in every goddamn meal of their demented little childhoods.

I'm still trying to claw my way back out of Bronze V. Every time I get out, I go on these streaks of 5-6 games where the matchmaker puts me on teams that could not be full of more mentally handicapped weasel rapists if you literally went back in time and fed all of them lead paint in every goddamn meal of their demented little childhoods.

As much struggles and tears, I said fuck it I'm jungling instantly shot right back up to silver 4, lost a few games, said fuck it troll supports, got to silver 3. I really want to troll my way to Gold and uninstall